


Kelele

by Brokenjaw (Vrael)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Worship, Devil Face (Lucifer TV), F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, devil bod, elegantly stated snake tongue cream pie cunnalingus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:56:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrael/pseuds/Brokenjaw
Summary: There’s a song that slides along the sinews of Lucifer’s heart that is only three words long.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 55
Kudos: 425





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incalyscent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incalyscent/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Келеле (Kelele)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757428) by [Brokenjaw (Vrael)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrael/pseuds/Brokenjaw), [UstimoJan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UstimoJan/pseuds/UstimoJan)



There’s a song that slides along the sinews of Lucifer’s heart that is only three words long. Just three. But his lips can’t seem to form the words. And he wants to, if only to stop the way they glissade across the inside of his chest. These three little ice skaters that cleave and carve out a single name.

But he knows that the moment his tongue weaves the sweeping syllables, he won’t be able to stop.

As he stares at his beloved from across the bar, it’s all he can think about. The shape of those words, the warmth of them locked away inside his throat. It makes his fingers tug at his suit collar, as if it were a noose and not high-thread-count silk. The whole of him catches on her freckles, her eyelashes, and the blistering blue of her eyes. It’s all he can do to keep his longing trapped behind his teeth.

His beautiful, darling Detective is oblivious of course. She’s perched on a barstool stabbing at what is almost food with a dimestore wooden chopstick.

And stars above, he’d much rather keep it that way. She doesn’t need this sickeningly sweet pining. She deserves to eat her revolting grocery store sushi in relative peace, especially after the day they’ve both had. He’s more than content to hide behind the mouth of a whiskey tumbler as she talks about their latest case between mouthfuls of a stale California roll. He’ll keep his syrupy thoughts to himself.

“You know,” Chloe says, dumping an inordinate amount of soy sauce in the plastic tray. “I just don’t understand the motive. The vic had no friends. No family. No close associates. Just the girlfriend, and apparently she has an alibi.”

“Love makes people want to do ridiculous things, Detective.” 

Like what, he doesn’t say. 

Chloe frowns. She’s absolutely precious when she frowns. Lucifer sometimes makes it a point specifically to be the cause, if only to watch her. He especially cherishes the way her nose just ever so slightly crinkles.

“Alibi,” she grunts, opening up yet another pocket of soy sauce.

Lucifer grunts back, gesturing to her meager meal. “I simply cannot fathom why you insist on torturing yourself, darling. You’re giving our dearest Mazikeen a run for her money.”

“What? Dan has Trixie. Dinner for one.” She waves a chopstick. “Simple. Easy. And I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Just because I don’t have to eat, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t leap at the opportunity to serve you.”

Chloe raises a perfect eyebrow; he swallows and amends quickly. “Dinner, of course.”

“We spent the entire day traipsing around a two mile stretch of the sewer system. I’ve probably destroyed my water bill scrubbing myself clean. After ruining your Armani, I didn’t want to push it.”

Lucifer can still see the remnants of her scrubbing. Herskin is a rather becoming and luminous pink. Her normally silky locks are almost fluffy—from shampooing more than once no doubt. He should have extended the courtesy of his own shower; it would have been more effective.

“It’s not your bloody fault someone decided to discard a corpse in the most asinine way possible.”

He doesn’t say that he found her beautiful even then, perhaps even more so, down in that dank and mouldering dark. Even knee-deep in gray water, his Detective was a vision. There was something to be said about how her torchlight limned her hair in silver. Or how she stalked, all lean limbs and muscles. She is a new world goddess. The swift knife of justice. A modern Sekhmet. A hunting Athena. A vengeful Inanna. He would have sacrificed half his collection of suits just to see her that way again.

“No,” she sighs. “But you’re my partner. And, well… I probably didn’t give you much of a choice.”

He laughs, licking the whiskey from his teeth. “I would follow you to the ends of the Earth. You know that. Decomposing rats and all.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “I’m eating.” 

“No, what you’re doing is committing a sin against food.” He pulls the carton away from her. “And I should know.”

And oh, how she pouts. She’s a mirror image of her little spawn, arms folded across her chest and a defiant line to her jaw.

“Oh, come now, Detective.” He leans across the marble. “You name it. I could make you a dinner that would take you to new, delicious heights you’ve never even dreamed of. Baked Alaska, beef Wellington, roast duck, venison.”

He knows he’s laying it on thick; it’s half flirtation and half outright overture. But he can’t help but want to fall at her feet and make her a meal of himself. Would that he could sate all her hungers—if only she would allow it.

“Where are you going to get deer in L.A. at this hour?” Chloe makes to snatch the box back, but he pulls it swiftly out of her reach. To his endless relief she doesn’t question his cooking ability. She knows better by now.

“I’m the Devil, darling,” he repostes. “Let me cook something. Please.

“But I’m hungry now.”

He proceeds to dump the grocery store sushi in the nearest bin. The look she gives him is murderous, but he would gladly die on the knife of her intent. 

“I will owe you one, Detective. A favor for my terrible slight against you.”

She grumbles, but he catches her jaw. He swipes a thumb across her cheek, hooking it to the corner of her mouth. Her pulse flutters so softly against his fingertips—like a bird nestled in the palm of his hand.

“You owe me big time, mister,” she says, but her smile means she’s letting him get away with it.

He kisses her, then. Slow, and soft and sweet. It’s both an apology and a promise. She nips him back, just a little. Just to prove how hungry she really is. And maybe to show she’s still a touch annoyed.

“And I intend to deliver,” he says. “Now, how do you feel about Gnocchi?”

* * *

There’s a skin under his skin that aches to be known, to be touched. And oh, how it burns with desire. The hellfire, the brimstone, and the magma that was once his baptism doesn’t even hold a candle. It’s a sweet, sweet inferno—bubbling like molasses, boiling like honey. The whole of it is tacky and saccharine and impossible to shake. There’s only one person's lips he would like to lick him clean of it, and even so he’ll gladly bathe in more.

Lucifer is Chloe’s creature, body and soul. There are dogs with looser leashes. 

Even now, on some nameless beach, she tugs and tugs and tugs. And she’s not even moving. No, she’s stretched out, and carefree—completely innocent and ignorant of the power she wields. How desperately he wants her to slip inside him, beneath his glamour. Beneath his pretense. Until he’s stripped naked in her undertow.

He sighs, adjusting his Valentino sunglasses. He’s glad of them, because he’s been staring at Chloe for thirty minutes and has yet to drink his fill.

The Detective's delectable form is made replete by the shining sun. Sweat pools along the length of her spine. Her bathing suit boy-shorts cover the swell of her ass, but her bikini top has been left deliciously undone. He longs to slide his fingers over the shadowed divots of her body, and have her seek out his own in return. But Chloe’s little urchin isn’t far down the beach—kicking over the remains of sandcastles with the once fearsome Mazikeen. Daniel, also, isn’t far off, snoring under the binding of one of those wretched Dan Brown books. 

The cooler is still open. Ice crumples under the noon day glare. He’s packed sandwiches—peanut butter and jelly for Beatrice, roast beef and cheddar for everyone else. Beers sweat in their cradles; cans of soda peek out like gems in a treasure chest. The day hangs molten and incandescent in his chest cavity.

“Detective,” he says, grasping at the words that convey how he feels and coming up short. “This is...this is nice.”

He can see her smile, even as it’s pressed against her beach towel. “Aren’t you glad you came?” 

“I’m always, always happy to come.”

“Shut up.” She flicks a piece of seaweed at him, and he dodges. It feels like the smile on his face could swallow him whole.

“You could come over here and make me.”

But Chloe doesn’t rise to the bait. And it’s no matter, because he’s pretty sure if he had his arms full of feisty Detective… their little beach excursion would quickly become a lot more salacious. 

He lights up a quick blunt since the offspring is away—and Chloe doesn’t chastise him for it. He even offers it to her, but she waves it down with a sleepy smile. In his experience, weed has never failed to soften the keenest of aches. The waves are calm and dragging, and he wants the remains of his sticky, inconvenient desires to be dragged out with them. He wants them lost in the susurrus of bubbles and brine. 

“Lucifer, are you okay?”

He glances over at her again, but frowns. The skin on her back has transitioned from a pinkish tan to a more livid red. When did that happen? His stomach churns. 

“I—“

He shut his eyes, and is suddenly struck by the sensation of being skinned alive. The scorching eye of the sun beating down on his flayed and exposed flesh. The salty, magma-hot sea searing his scarred body, and filling the pockmarks and the spongy hollows between bone and muscle. How his angelic, perfect form was eroded away to nothing but a pile of gristle and agony. And how something so precious was bled out of him and devoured by a towering and uncaring sky.

“You’re burning,” Lucifer says. 

“I’m getting a tan.”

The noise the rolls off his tongue is pathetic. A pleading whine. He’s on his feet and desperately digging into the beach bag. He finds the sunscreen.

Chloe turns her head towards him; her eyes carry exasperation and fondness. She doesn’t get up or tie back the straps on her bikini top, but she watches all the same. 

“I’m fine, Lucifer,” she huffs incredulously. “Really.”

She turns Lucifer into an awkward teenager with just a handful of words. He’s not sure what’s compelling him—the thought of Chloe burning cleaves sharp into his solar plexus. He fumbles with the SPF 50 in his hands. 

“Please, Detective,” the Devil begs. “Please let me take care of you.”

She considers him for a second. He squirts a dollop of lotion into his palms, wearing his most seductive smile. One that he hopes will convince her.

“Fine,” Chloe says after a moment, “but you’ll owe me one.”

Relief sags his shoulders.

Lucifer straddles her from behind, and she laughs, short and sweet. He doesn’t seat himself, but only hovers over her, as much as his itches to sink downward into the warm planes of her back. 

He presses the cool sunscreen against her skin and Chloe flinches, her breath hitching in her chest. But he quickly smooths her discomfort away. He kneads into her shoulders,lets his thumbs dig into the delicate musculature of her neck, and she melts into it. He touches her in the way he longs for his own scorched skin to be touched. Gentle, reverent. 

He is no longer the poison of god. In her hands he is a soothing balm. Something that heals instead of harms. He will take away all her hurt; he will protect her. He will be the vigilant guardian he never had. He will be the hands that will always catch her, no matter how many times she falls.

* * *

There’s a desire that strings itself across his bones. He’s not brave enough to name it, not yet. Not when his head is buried between Chloe’s legs, begging with his tongue for her release. He might not know a thing about salvation, but he doesn’t need to. The entire stretch of the universe is between her thighs, heaven and hell both. She is the soft hand that raises him from perdition.

“This wasn’t.” Chloe’s hand fists in his hair. “How it.” She bucks and grinds into his nose, chasing her orgasm. “Was supposed.” Her calves tremble. “To go.”

“And how was it supposed to go, my dearest Detective?” He breathes against the core of her; he licks a long line at the crease of her thigh.

Nails scape along his scalp. She twists her fingers, yanking at his strands. She’s sluggish in the afterglow. “This was supposed to be a birthday gift to you.”

“Oh, were you expecting to have your wicked way with me in the supply closet?” 

His precious Detective looks thoroughly debauched—red silk panties hooked around her ankles, hair askew, skin flushed and wanting. Her bare arse is pressed against the copying machine, and it takes all of his self-control not to hit print. He’s pretty sure the view would look lovely, even in scratchy black and white.

“As I told you, I don’t have a birthday.” He nips at velvet, buttery skin. “I was created before the concept of time.”

Chloe sighs; her fingers cascade under his chin, gently forcing him to look at her face.

“Well, we just took what was on your state ID. You deserve to have a day in which you’re celebrated.”

The overhead fluorescents aren't the most flattering of lights. They cast a sickly, whitish green and wash out every other color. Even his golden skin looks pale, and mouldering, and corpse like, but on her it looks like a halo. She is the richness of sunlight on a winter's day. The breath of life that washes away the thorny frost. She is warmth after centuries of gray tinged darkness. Her eyes are forget-me-nots sprouting from freezing and hard packed soil.

“I don’t need to be celebrated. I only need you,” he says, the words so sincere they almost burn. “You know that.”

“Come up here,” she says, and he obeys. He’s leaning against her, pressed against her sweetly parted thighs. He’s glad his trousers are finely made, because it’s a small miracle his erection hasn’t split them in two. 

“Would it really be so bad to let me take care of you for once?” She brushes against his stubble; her breath is hot against his ear. It’s all he can do to remain steady, because desire twists deeply in his belly. It’s a sword, and Chloe’s hand is on the hilt. 

“I have had lifetimes, centuries of plenty. You don’t need to give me anything.” But there’s a space there. Empty parentheses in those centuries. A blankness where that infinite plenty was ash in his mouth. A bitterness with no bottom. It’s funny, looking back on it. How stupid it all was, how incredibly foolish.

How he never realized that the entire scope of his existence was famine, until Chloe compelled him to feast. 

“But I want to.” She nips gently at the spot just behind his jaw. “Are you going to deny me?”

“Maybe.”

Something about her wilts in his arms. He’s reminded she did this for him. And in some small way he’s going against the fibers of his being. He’s denying her desire. 

“Oh, my dear. My darling. My everything.” He pulls her tight. She’s so precious he doesn’t want an atom of space between them. Only his silly, valiant, and beautiful Detective would be disappointed with her own satisfaction. “How can I make it up to you?”

“I guess you’ll owe me one,” she mumbles against his shirt. “But you, Mr. Morningstar, are racking up quite the tab.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He finds her lips, and he gives, and gives and gives. It leaves her chest heaving. “They say all the best things in life are free. I disagree. The best things in life are the things I’d pay dearly for.”

Later, after round two against the fax machine, Chloe wipes his face in the single person bathroom, the door firmly locked against the outside world. Her hands are warm, and, while the paper towel is scratchy, the motions are softer than cashmere. The way she looks at him, the way she touches him fills him up, so that there are no hollow spaces in between.

But as she presses against his stubble, damp and soothing, he wonders, so deeply, so darkly, if this isall true. Would she do this if he looked like the wretched creature he isbeneath? Would she still look him in the eye? Would she still be gentle?

The memory of her face when she first saw him says no.

But his heart, his stupid, ancient, calcified heart still holds out hope.

And when he blows out his candles in front of the entire precinct, in front of his friends and in front of his beloved, there is a wish ringing in his ears.

_Please love me. Love all of me. As I surely and desperately love all of you._

* * *

There are things Lucifer wants, but doesn’t know how to say. 

And perhaps that’s what threw him into this mess. 

Perhaps it was that stupid, terrible, birthday wish. Perhaps it was those desperate words that never actually reached his Detective’s ears. The wanting. The pining. The touching and the pleading. The saccharine syrupy claws of love and the soul deep wish for the whole of him to be seen, naked. To be smothered and cherished—broken and unworthy as he is.

He sighs.

In the end, the cause probably doesn’t matter. What matters now are the effects. 

It started like the last incident. A patch of ruined skin. The eruption of mangled claws. Hooked spines tearing out the back of one of his favorite suits. And now he’s perched on his toilet, a veritable bathroom gargoyle, with veiny wings crammed against his marble countertop. 

His isn’t panicking yet, not quite. Chloe rescued him last time, and she’ll rescue him this time. She’ll say the magic words, and his ugly visage will vanish like morning dew. A nightmare banished by the rising sun. All she has to do is get here. And by his estimation, she should be here soon. Any minute now. 

He stares at his hands, warped red and ugly. The scars of long lanced blisters and boils knot his knuckles and make his palms twisted, crumbling wads of skin. There’s a map to be made of him, of all this excruciating horror. But he’s too much of a coward to put ink to paper.

He shifts his gaze to his phone, back to counting the minutes until Chloe arrives. Technically, he texted her hours ago, but he can’t fault her. He asked if she could come over— - nothing dire. Chloe had to drop off Trixie tonight, and, well, he knows for a fact how much paperwork she had left to languish. He didn’t want to worry her, as much as he was worried about himself. 

Besides, the bottle of Xanax is beginning to kick in beautifully. He lets his eyes drift closed, listening to the quiet echoing hum of the traffic outside.

And when he dreams, he dreams of Chloe.

* * *

There’s a hand on his forehead, cool against his hot skin. He presses into it. It's a relief he could spend the rest of his eternal life chasing. 

“Hello, beautiful,” a familiar, beloved voice says, but he frowns. His throat is parched. His lips are dry. And he is certainly not beautiful. Not now. And perhaps he never really was.

He opens his eyes, and Chloe’s hovering just above his face, her golden hair aflame in the slanted Los Angeles sunset.

“You know I had a devil of a time getting you to the bed. But I guess all that CrossFit came in handy.”

He groans, finding her joke in poor taste considering the situation.

“Not in the mood, huh?” Her thumb skates a scar that runs the edge of his brow. “Well, let’s see if we can change that.”

He makes to get up from the bed, but he finds that both his arms are bound. He tugs gently against the silk and the headboard. His legs are trapped in a similar position. 

He doesn’t understand. He can’t begin to fathom. Whatever Chloe is playing at, it’s short circuited him completely.

“By my count, the Devil owes me three favors.” Chloe's smile is the wicked slice of a scythe. “And I’ve come to collect at least one.”

He, the Devil, one of the most ancient of beings, is caught by surprise. And it’s not entirely a welcome one. 

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but now isn’t the time, Detective.”

“Now’s the perfect time, actually.” She kisses the tip of his nose, and whatever supporting argument he had abruptly evaporates. “How many times have you taken care of me, Lucifer? The gifts. The meals. The orgasms. And let’s not forget you’ve gone to hell for me, twice. And let’s not bring up Cain. Or Uriel.”

He remains silent, because he knows the answer will damn him in more ways than one. Chloe drums playfully on one of his warped pectorals and it’s all he can do not to make a pathetically strangled whimper.

“So much for you eidetic memory, huh?” Her laughter is almost a growl. “Then let me bring up this fun fact. Not once, not a single measly time have you allowed me to return the sentiment.”

His heart sinks. “Darling, have I made you angry?”

“You could say that.” She tweaks the scarred patch of flesh where one of his nipples would have been had it not been burned away.

“I could stop, if it bothers you that much.” He doesn’t want to sound too disappointed, but the offer leaves his chest like a broken bird. To be exiled from her altar would wound him deeper than his fall from heaven. The scar of it would dig even deeper still. 

Chloe only smirks. “I don’t want you to.”

His sudden relief at her words washes away the hurt like a cleansing tide. 

He wishes that in this moment his voice was softer, not this rough hewn thing. He doesn’t want his question to sound like sin. He doesn’t want these words to be of the Devil speaking to a petitioner. He wants them to sound like those of a lover, sincere and vulnerable in their care. But he asks it anyway.

“Then, what is it that you desire?” 

Chloe, his beautiful Chloe who is sunlight and beaches, and even sometimes stale Japanese food only smiles in return. There isn’t a hint of disgust in her gaze.

“I want to cash in,” she replies. “For the rest of the night I want you to do as I say, no questions asked. No evasions. Got it?”

He frowns, considering. “Fine. But I’m not sure how this will help the problem at hand, Detective. You commanding me to change back might be a good idea, and I appreciate the restraints, if feeble. I know I’m probably more terrifying without them—“

Chloe puts a finger to his charred lips. “Let me worry about that okay? Do you trust me?”

“Yes?”

She kisses him then, and she’s vicious. She forces him to take, and take, and take. His sharp, gangrenous teeth clack against her own. And it’s like she’s begging him to swallow her whole. She ends it so cleanly, so swiftly that he chases her orbit, hungry for more. The restraints prevent him from succeeding.

“Chloe—“

“Now tell me your deepest desire.”


	2. Interlude

“I... What?”

“Your deepest desire, Lucifer. Come on.”

“You, of course,” he replies instantly. 

Chloe rolls her eyes, but she can’t hide the smile he gives her. It makes him want to gather her in his arms and not let go, as revolting and bound as he is. 

“Could you be a little more specific?” She nudges his shoulder. “Hm?”

He thinks about falling. The screaming burn of it. How it was a screeching, bleeding descent. And how the drop of it—the floor being ripped out from under him—felt exactly like this. Only, he’s now a slave to his beloved’s gravity, not his Father’s. The only difference is that this time, it’s unending pain and pleasure both.

The Detective stares at him expectantly, seemingly oblivious to the mental comparison. And oh, he can’t refuse her. Not this time. Not with her blue eyes. Not with her lip stuck between her teeth. 

He’s reminded then, of what was, of what could be. That falling didn’t bring the worst of the agony. Not by a long shot. It was landing. Or, more accurately, crashing. And all he can hope for is that Chloe Decker catches him this time.

“I want, I want—“ He forces himself to say it, to be the naked creature Chloe needs him to be. “I want you to love me.”

She smiles, soft and sad. 

“Oh Lucifer,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. “That I can definitely do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And look there's more ->


	3. Part II

Lucifer’s kitchen counter is littered with takeout bags and boxes from at least seven different restaurants. There’s Chinese, some sort of Creole, and what looks to be Japanese, but there are even more packages stuffed behind those, stacked high enough to tip over. It’s a mess, really. A small pocket of chaos in an otherwise orderly penthouse. But from the scent alone, his fastidious tendencies are cowed. Cleaning is the farthest thing from his mind when it feels like someone shot a grappling hook straight into his stomach.

Hunger has always been an odd thing as far as he's concerned. He technically doesn’t need to eat, ever. He could live off hydrogen particles and stardust, easily. Spend a millennium without a single morsel passing his lips. But the ravenous impulse is still there, and it always will be. Call it Greed, call it Gluttony, but still he hungers like a hurricane. 

Tonight, he’s every bit the Satan that syphilitic bastard Dante so flatteringly described. Tonight, he would swallow the world if he could. He is that mindless, slavering beast. All he needs is a frozen lake and a tiny bit of Judas Iscariot to gnaw on. 

But first and foremost, it’s Chloe that has his attention.

She is seated at the edge of the bed, a queen in a golden silk dress. The fabric of it hugs her curves, slides down her waist, and slinks against her calves. Her body is a gilded line of sunlight in the gloaming of his penthouse, and every movement she makes is a shimmery dance, honey, molten and sweet.

He would adorn her in the very stars themselves, but truly she would look more radiant in less. All the finery in the world is nothing compared to the soft expanses of her skin, bared only for his touch. It’s all he can do not to break his bindings and skim the corner of her jaw, and nip at her freckles, one by one by one, even as his belly twists with its own desperate need. But now, apparently, is not the time. 

Around the Detective are serving platters—some of the large silver ones from downstairs. He wonders, briefly, if she bullied Patrick into giving her the run of the place. What is his is absolutely hers, of course. His home, his throne, his body, and his heart. He’s just delighted at the sudden initiative. There’s something delicious about the unspoken word of ownership. 

The thought of it alone sends a sharp spike of desire through his gut.

By Chloe’s feet is a sweaty ice bucket, crowded with bottles of both red and white wine. There’s also water and a Mexican coke and even some orange juice. Their collected condensation winks like diamonds in the candle light. But what catches his attention, what  _ really  _ catches his attention, is the small collection of whiskey next to it. The sight alone has his tongue swiping across his parched lips.

His throat is as needy as his stomach, it seems.

But thankfully, his beautiful Detective is merciful. With a quick catch of her gaze, he’s rewarded for his patience. A tumbler of Macallan is pressed against the scarred crease of his mouth. He swallows it in one go. She refills it immediately, making sure he doesn’t go unsated. She even provides him a third round, which he savors down to the dregs. It’s difficult not to let his scorched cheek linger against her grip on the crystal, but he eventually finds the strength to pull away.

The whole situation is curious.

And surprising.

And unexpected.

It leaves him feeling a little off kilter. 

He’s not sure if this is one of her kinks. He’d like to think it isn’t. He’s pretty sure he knows her better than that. Something tells him she’d be more into shibari or role play.

He’s not sure what the entire picture is really, until Chloe reveals the first platter of food she purchased.

There, artfully arranged in a circle on one of the platters, is a veritable sea of nigiri; in the center of it, a pile of California rolls. 

The lightbulb goes off, as it were, and he smirks.

“Is this vengeance, darling?” he asks. “I have to admit I’m quite impressed.”

Chloe smiles down at him. “Just think of it as getting even. Tonight, let me take care of you.”

“Like this?” He looks down at himself, a well-picked scab in the middle of a pile of white linen. He’s seen more appealing ground beef. Stars above, he’s seen more delicious looking roadkill. Already, his appetite is souring from only a quick glance.

“Especially like this.” Chloe hums, delicately plucking up a piece of tuna with lacquered chopsticks. “Now open up.”

Lucifer complies.

And the taste, the taste is indescribable.

It’s not like he hasn’t had tuna before. Of course he has. He’s walked the earth for millennia and had it prepared any which way human civilization has deigned to invent. But this, this is sensation upon sensation. He can taste the clean tang of the ocean, the sweetness of its flesh, the bright pop of vinegar on the rice. The touch of salty soy sauce. He groans into the Detective’s hand before he can stop himself. 

She puts down the chopsticks and brushes the edge of his throat. “Was it good?”

He can only nod.

“I’ve got stuff from other places too. Just tell me what you want, and it’s yours.”

“All of it.” He swallows. “Please.”

At his words, Chloe shines with barely contained joy. She pours him glasses of wine. She loads up plates upon plates. She even makes a pass at arranging the courses to their best advantage. Something she would never do for herself, he knows. But she knows that he would do for her. 

His Detective is doing her best to return his favors in spades.

And he is fed from her hands, and her hands alone.

There’s baked Alaska, beef Wellington, roast duck, and venison—the likes of which he had once baited her with. Globes of fruit are overflowing from a decorative bowl. Cheese platters full to groaning on oaken boards. But there are new things too, things that are very much Chloe. There are French fries and tacos and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. As if to offer parts of herself, as he had offered her gnocchi.

The whole thing is a metaphor, he is certain. And normally, metaphors fill him with distaste. Blunt honesty is the rule of all his days. But tonight, in this moment, his beloved is teaching him patience. Tonight he will sit for her poetry and listen.

Warped and tortured muscles melt further and further into the mattress with each dish. The only thing that matters is the slide of Chloe’s thumb against his jaw as she slips her fork between his teeth. The silver spoon against his tongue. The chopsticks against his lips. 

And every so often her lips against his own—a sweet intermezzo between dishes, her tongue curling around his long, forked one. Her lips soft against his sharpened teeth.

He wonders if food has always tasted like this, and his glamour blunted it somehow. Perhaps he wasn’t paying attention to the virtues of California rolls. Perhaps he simply ignored the sweetness of store-bought salted caramel ice cream. 

But he suspects, the real change is Chloe.

He no longer tastes creosote on the back of his tongue. Only her.

* * *

When they’re finished, Chloe begins to clean up. Dishes are swept away to the kitchen. Leftovers are packed away in the refrigerator. Crumbs are brushed off the bed, and a damp towel is swiped across his face, cleaning whatever stickiness he couldn’t catch with his tongue.

Lucifer struggles against his bindings, desperate to help, but Chloe denies him. 

“Be back in a minute,” she says with a delicate peck to his cheek. 

And then he’s alone. 

His eyes could follow her, from his vantage point it would be easy enough. All he has to do is tilt a few degrees to his right. But he can be good. He can be patient. She’s more than proven the rewards are worth it. 

Instead, he forces his gaze upwards towards the ceiling. He’s met with liquid black tile. 

And a monster.

An abomination stares back at him, replete with claws and bat wings and hellfire eyes. All the things nightmares are made of. All the things that have haunted humanity’s steps since Eve first slipped the Garden gates. 

He screws his eyes shut and makes a mental note to remodel. Perhaps he could make popcorn ceilings finally fashionable. Finally, a suitable challenge for the Devil.

Time drifts in and out. It pulls on the distant echoes of Los Angeles traffic, the humming of helicopters, and the oh so distant sound of the ocean. It’s easy to pretend like this, that nothing’s changed. That he still looks like his normal self, with normal hands and normal skin and hair. That he’s still handsome. And that Chloe still finds him so.

* * *

“Asleep already? What happened to that divine stamina you won’t shut up about?”

“Mhm,” he yawns. “If you haven’t noticed, currently, there’s nothing divine about me. However, I will be more than happy to provide a demonstration at a later date.” 

Peeling an eye open, he finds his beloved detective has returned and has changed into something more comfortable. She’s in a black silk lingerie set, with a bra that's nothing more than a revealing cage of intricate lace. He can see the tantalizing rose of her nipples peeking through the filigree. The way the clean lines accentuate her lithe, athletic body. She isn’t a goddess, no. She is the very air inside his lungs. She’s the infinity behind stars. Darkness and desire and his own sweet torture. The lips of mortals couldn’t hope to speak of her nature. She is fathomless in the way human tongues can’t touch. 

His breath rasps heavy in his chest, and oh how he hates the sound. He feels more like a beast than a man, or an angel. There’s nothing left of the handsome gentleman he once pretended to be, but he can’t seem to stop. His lungs plod onward, regardless. And what’s more, the rest of his traitorous body follows suit. He’s desperate to yank down his hands, to quickly cover his burgeoning erection. Never has he felt more like a humiliated schoolboy. Never has he felt so betrayed by his own desire. 

Chloe doesn’t deserve the evidence of his arousal. She doesn’t need to see the chewed up wad of hotdog meat tenting his trousers.

“Hey!” Chloe swats at his nose. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

Her gaze softens. “Hurting yourself.” 

He wonders just when he became such an easy read. The Devil is undone by a mortal woman. There are no more secrets, no more evasions. There is no space in his head or in his heart in which she cannot follow. It’s both an embarrassment and a relief.

Chloe kneels near the edge of the mattress. In her hands is a bottle of lotion that was pilfered from one of his side tables. 

It takes him a moment to catch on. And panic quickly crawls its way up his throat.

“No,” he begs desperately.

“No?” His Detective raises an eyebrow. 

“No.” 

Chloe frowns and unravels the silk ties at his ankles and at his wrists. She kisses the palm of a gnarled hand and brings it to her cheek. 

“Is the Devil backing out of a bargain?” she asks quietly. 

“I changed my mind,” Lucifer stutters. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to force you.”

“You’re not forcing me to do anything. I promise. Do you trust me?”

He makes a non-committal noise, but he knows at her question his argument is lost. He trusts her, possibly more than anyone else in the entirety of creation. And bugger it all, she knows it.

“Just let me take care of you, okay?” she prods. “Like you said you wanted me to.”

“Alright,” he says, relenting. 

“Now turn over.”

He shifts carefully, folding his wings so he doesn’t knock Chloe over. Having his face pressed against a pillow means at least he doesn’t have to watch.

There’s the snapping of the lotion lid, the musky smell of sandalwood and cinnamon. But he doesn’t expect her first touch to be so cold, and certainly not at the base of his bat-like monstrosities. 

He stiffens and fists his sheets, shredding silk with the tips of his claws.

Chloe hesitates. “Is this okay?”

He takes a breath and nods wordlessly into the pillow.

She slowly pries his left wing open, carefully spreading the long metacarpals so that the skin between is stretched taut. 

Her hands knead upwards toward the arch of his wing, where the bony fingers meet the vellum-like webbing. She presses firmly at the clustered muscle group, the tendons that attach to a massive claw-thumb. The tension there eases, a stiffness he didn’t even realize he was carrying. He flutters without meaning to, but the Detective only laughs. 

She glides onwards, stroking down the pointed index. It’s easier now, to hold himself open. He no longer trembles but relaxes. Her slender fingers paint lotion in every charred space, every crevice, every expanse of skin that has never once been soothed before. Skin that was once dry to the point of splitting becomes pliable. His true flesh might not be soft ever again, or supple, but under her tender care, it almost feels tolerable. The tightness vanishes entirely, leaving only relief in its wake.

Her palm goes to the spaces beneath his spines, and the sensation is strange. There’s all this new geometry he never bothered to get acquainted with. It’s like wearing an ill-fitting suit, making her ministrations feel both out of place and raw in their intensity.

Even stranger is the way she smooths her way up and down his ruined back without comment. How she kneads out the knots like any lover might, applying a gentle pressure to muscles and protruding bone. She massages over pockets of scar tissue, not even pausing as she dips down into spongy divots and wasted hollows. Down into the places he won’t even dare to rove on his most adventurous of days. 

“Are we still good?”

“Y-yes,” he grinds out.

“I can stop if you want. It’s probably a lot.”

No one has ever touched him like this. Not Eve. Not Maze. Not any of his siblings. Not once in the history of the universe has someone touched his flayed skin with gentle care. With touch for the sake of touching. _ A lot _ doesn’t even describe the half of it.

“No, Detective.” He realizes abruptly that his eyes are wet, and his pillow is damp. That he’s been a crying mess for minutes. “It’s perfect.”

He lets every stroke bleed into another, warm and gentle. Chloe pulls his trousers off, but he finds that he can’t scrape up an ounce of care. His anxiety is smothered down with soft hands and gentle caresses.

The Devil is hers to explore to heart's content. 

Chloe slides appreciatively over the curve of his backside, playful, groping his arse before moving on to knead his thighs. He groans as she rubs gently into his tortured calf muscles. 

“Fuck, you’re tense,” she hisses. “I’m no professional, but you should probably invest in a good masseuse.”

“Alas, invulnerability and all that. You’re the first and the last to give the Devil a real massage.”

Chloe stills.“I’m probably butchering it.”

“Have you seen me, Detective? I’m already butchered.”

Chloe makes a sound of derision. He still can’t see her face, but her self-doubt is an anathema, and it is bringing down the mood considerably.

“For what it’s worth,” he continues. “I’d prefer you over any of your so-called professionals. I prefer you over most things, actually. Armani suits, vintage wines, Vicodin, and even the stars themselves.”

She snorts. “You’re laying it on thick, buddy. Is this how you lure super models into your bed?

“I don’t know, is it working?”

“Maybe,” she replies.

They soon fall into companionable silence. Chloe continues with her ‘turning the Devil to a pile of mush’ agenda, while he lays there, content to take it. Her thumbs press into the soles of his feet, completely ignoring the clicking of claws and the unfamiliar structure of his toes. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s dozing off, not until it’s too late. One of his wings flops outward clumsily, knocking over the ice bucket and the alarm clock. Chloe catches the bridge of one gently, preventing it from fully smacking her in the face.

“Okay, okay,” she huffs. “I’ll go back to your wings.”

“Apologies, I—“

Chloe kisses the base of his skull. Her lips are cool and soft, and he can feel her hair tickling his neck.

“It’s okay, Lucifer. You can let go. I’m here.”

He sighs deeper into the mattress and lets her sweep him into oblivion.

* * *

There is a black hole at the center of the universe, but it’s also in the pupils of her eyes. There’s falling, there’s drowning, but what’s the word for an astronaut without a tether? What’s the word for a man who would willingly fling himself into that hungry abyss? He wants to find out. He wants to invent it even. He wants to write a new dictionary filled with all the ways he willingly loses himself in her. Three thousand pages for the word want. Entire appendices filled with lust. An entire new language for what could only be love.

Devotion is such a simple and empty word compared to what he feels. And there’s not a single syllable in his Father’s tongue that is worthy of the honor.

Lucifer sighs.

He’s still drowsy from his impromptu nap, but the Detective is nestled in his arms, just as drowsy as he. Somewhere between the space of sleep and waking, she had crawled into his bed. His body instinctively moved to curl around her, eager to mold itself into her curves. He is a dragon, and she is his hoard. 

Her pale skin contrasts ever so starkly against his mincemeat flesh, but her chest rises and falls with an easy rhythm. Sleeping peacefully in the arms of the Devil.

He lets his claws gently comb out her golden tresses. Hair slides between his fingers like sunlight and shadow.

His desire aches like a bruise, pulling and gnawing and slithering. He’s still sporting a satanic stiffy. It’s pressed against the back of one of Chloe’s thighs, and every time she shifts he has to stop himself from chasing the delicious friction. Given his condition, it’s probably physically impossible for him to get blue balls, but maybe purple would be more accurate. 

He stifles a laugh into Chloe’s shoulder. 

“Mmmmm,” she mumbles.

“Shhhh,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”

Chloe hums in contentment, a puff of warm air tickles his ear. She snuggles closer, tucking her face in the space just below his jaw. Her lips lightly graze his jugular.

“But what if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’m certain we can find something to do. I do have a vast collection of DVDs languishing somewhere. I am at your command.”

“I think I might have a better idea.”

Her hand trails southward, dancing over valleys of ruin, sweeping over the arid plane of his chest. She skates over the scorched desert of his abdomen and trails down, down, into the craggy ravine of his pelvis. Until she finds precisely the wild country she’s looking for. 

The noise he makes is positively strangled. He almost yelps.

“Detective,  _ please _ —“

Her grip is gentle but unrelenting. Instead of letting go, her thumb swipes over the tip of his cock, and smears precum ever so slowly across the head. 

He groans into her neck.

“How many dicks do you think I’ve seen in my life, Lucifer?” Chloe asks.

“Twenty?” He mumbles breathlessly.

“Higher.”

“Thirty?”

“Higher.”

“Why, Detective, I didn’t know you had it in you. Literally.”

“Uh-huh,” He can’t quite see her face, but he knows she’s rolling her eyes. “What I would like to point out is that yours is certainly not the least attractive.”

“Then I feel bad for the poor fellow who has that dubious distinction.”

“Fellows,” Chloe corrects. “But that's not the point. The point is that I kinda like it.”

She slips under the sheets. Her skin sliding against his is the most exquisite agony he’s ever known.

“I like its length,” she says, and her hand strokes down his shaft. Her fingers stutter against the rough texture, and a sick, twisted jolt of pleasure leaves him bereft of any coherent thoughts he may have been able to muster.

“I like its girth.” Her breath is hot against his cock. Soft hands climb up to cradle the balls beneath.

“I like how it curves.” And her lips wrap around the head. She bobs, not once, but twice, taking him in whole. He inelegantly bucks straight into her mouth. 

“And I like the way it tastes,” Chloe says pulling away. 

She crawls up his front until she’s hovering above his face. A thin thread of saliva dangles from her lower lip, but she smiles. Blushing, bashful, and hungry.

“ _ Darling _ ,” he rasps, because there aren’t any other words that come to mind.

“I love you,” she says. “All of you. Even the parts you don’t like. And I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying to prove it. You’re mine, Lucifer, and I’m not letting you go.”

Chloe kisses him then, and he can taste himself on her tongue. He’s surprised to find it’s not his least favorite flavor, but, like with everything Chloe touches, it’s vastly improved by her presence. Lucifer sinks into her mouth, hot and needy. He is but a humble supplicant at her altar.

Chloe places his hands on her waist and pushes them downward so that the lace of her lingerie hooks into his claws. He mostly intends to slip them off of her, but he fumbles, ripping them off instead. She doesn’t seem to care, however. She’s more focused on unhooking her bra. The way she arches upwards gives him a delectable view of her cunt. 

His tongue swipes across his lips in anticipation. He would gladly sup at her table and parch his thirst with the nectar between her legs. She is pomegranates and wine, a feast without fathom. She is the first and last harvest, the sweetness of—

“Lucifer, eyes up here,” Chloe chides, tossing her bra into some shadowed corner of the room. “This isn’t about me, remember? It’s about you. Let me take care of you.”

He whines. “But I want to please you. Let me make you feel good, Detective.”

“You already do.” She pushes back on his shoulders so that he’s pressed back into his pillows. “Now it’s my turn.”

He’s painfully hard, and his cock drags across her belly in a searing, wet line. Chloe grinds down against him, tilting his face upwards with a firm press of her hand. She forces him to stare at the ceiling with her fingers wrapped around his jaw.

“Now watch,” she commands.

His eyes are glued to Chloe’s reflection as she fishes out the lube from his nightstand. She slicks his length, just as she slicks her core. Her lush, little body grinds against his abdomen, close enough that his cock slides along the seam of her legs—close enough that she rubs against him a bit, generating a precious amount of friction. 

Her teeth nip into the space below his jugular; her fingertips dance along his ribcage. There's a spot behind his ear that makes him whine, a patch just above his hip bone that causes him to bite down on his lip. A space just behind his knees that makes him grind up into her, his body pleading without words. She’s exceptionally adept at finding all of his sensitive spots and scouring his flesh for new ones. It's a talent borderlining on the supernatural. 

He blames her profession.

Together, they look like a nightmare straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. But what a masterpiece they make. Chloe, with her mouth agape in ecstasy and him, the Devil, completely under her thrall. They’re so different, but the dichotomy between them produces something more than ochre and canvas. It’s a revelation, and he finds himself impossibly all the more aroused. He’s almost to the point of breaking into pieces—the whole of him shattering in her arms. 

She leans herself forward to nip the skin just beneath his ear. “You’re mine.”

He shudders. “Yes.”

Her hand wraps around his base, tilting it just so.

“You’re mine,” she repeats.

And finally, finally sinks onto him. 

It’s a slow and agonizing push. Her body swallows him up inch by bloody inch until, after an eternity, he bottoms out. Chloe gasps for air, clawing at her hips and his thighs. He’s bigger. He knows he’s bigger. And perhaps he should have warned her against biting off more than she could chew. Unfortunately, he’s rather preoccupied and a little too blissed out to string together a coherent sentence. 

The Detective takes a moment to adjust, and he’s as still as still can be. But soon, she gathers herself and begins to move. Slow, at first, but building in such a way that he’s already so very close to the edge.

She leans down, hands coming to rest on his shoulders.

“You’re mine,” she says once more.

And he’s gone.

* * *

When he comes back to, Chloe is gingerly sliding off of him. Her lean body is stretched in a taut line. He can practically feel her frustration, even though he knows she’d never voice it.

“You didn’t, did you?” Lucifer croaks.

“It’s not about me—“

“Yes, rather, it’s about me. I get the picture, my dear. However, I rather think the painting is incomplete.”

His beloved looks genuinely confused. “How so?”

“There’s no me without you.”

He grabs her then, pulling her flush with his body. His huge wings crowd the bed, sealing them both in darkness. There is no longer an outside world, only the two of them, and he finds that he loves it. Here, his beloved is safe. Here, nothing else matters.

His serpentine tongue flicks behind Chloe’s ear, and she’s shuddering into him so deliciously he’s already halfway hard again. 

“Lucifer.”

“Yes. Yessss.” He almost hisses. 

She’s rendered breathless and moaning against the rough texture of his palms. Claws slide to cup a perfect breast, and his mouth goes to latch on to another. It’s rather convenient having a tongue that can slide the whole circumference of a nipple. He wonders what other exciting things it could do. He’s certain the Detective would love to find out.

Her eyes are wet, her mouth is parted, and when he looks at her it almost hurts. She’s so luminous it cuts to the very core of him. He won’t ever leave her wanting. That he will promise until the end of time.

He licks down her belly, painting the crease that defines her abdomen and dipping playfully into her belly button. The pointed and pronged tip causes her to dig her fingernails deep into his back, and he hopes, just a little, that she’s drawn blood.

But he’s eager to get to the main event just as much as she is.

He spreads her legs open, and she doesn’t argue this time. No, he has an invitation to the banquet. If anything he’s the guest of honor, considering his very  _ warm  _ welcome. 

She’s dripping from their recent coupling, a mess from his premature release, but that’s a problem that can easily be mended. 

His mouth latches onto her; his prehensile tongue swirls around her clit a few times, before he lets the pad of his thumb replace it. He trails downward, toward her center, lapping up their combined essence. As much as he enjoyed tasting himself in her mouth, the source is all that much better.

The Detective’s thighs clamp down around his ears, and he smiles. No matter what skin he wears, he’s home. He’s allowed this closeness. This trust. It belongs to him as surely as he belongs to Chloe.

He cannot love himself, but he can love the way she loves him.

* * *

Dawn pours itself into the penthouse, like an uninvited guest. It’s pale and soft and pink-ish grey, given the perpetual haze—lethargic for all of its audacity. And the city itself is slowly rising with the sun. The quiet whispers of morning are slowly giving way to frustrated drivers, barking dogs, and crowing urban roosters. 

The Devil is mostly back to his normal, attractive self. He still has patches of skin that look like a particularly bad case of eczema, and his feathery appendages have yet to make their return, but he finds himself not overly concerned. He still has some things to hash out with the good doctor, but it can wait a little. He even chooses to leave his bat-like monstrosities out. The effort of tucking them back in would certainly kill his quiet morning buzz.

He focuses instead on the Detective’s pour-over coffee, slowly adding portions of water to the glass funnel and stirring the grounds. It needs to be perfect. It needs to be the best cup of coffee she’s ever had given the previous night. Chloe is probably owed at least six more favors, all things considered, but this and many, many other things he will absolutely do for free. It comes standard with her complete and utter ownership.

“Lucifer?” 

Chloe comes up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He lifts his wing behind her. She’s stark naked; he can feel it. The sensitive webbing of his wings feels intoxicatingly good against her skin.

“Yes, my love?”

“Are you feeling better?”

“Much.” He takes a free hand to find her own. “Thank you.”

“You know I love you right? I really do.” She noses into his shoulder. “I know your head gets filled with so much noise sometimes. You doubt you’re a good person. You doubt you’re worthy. You doubt the world. Your Father’s plan. But if there’s one thing that you shouldn’t ever doubt, it’s me, okay? Don’t doubt  _ us.” _

He doesn’t. He would see the heat death of the cosmos before he ever betrayed their relationship with such a thought. She’s more than proved her devotion. He knows it as he knows his own.

“Is this another favor owed, my dearest Detective?” He means it to be playful banter, really, but Chloe’s grip tightens around his own.

“No.” She says, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. “It’s a promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the softest, dearest writer that is an inspiration and who patiently let me wax poetic about my K-2SO/Jyn Erso feelings. Please don't die over this, I adore you. 
> 
> A special thank you to [ObliObla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla) who beta-ed this hot mess.
> 
> The fic title comes from the Swahili word for noise - specifically a loud one like a shout, or a rising din. Part two is in the hopper and _coming_ soon to theaters near you.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [thepoisonofgod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepoisonofgod/pseuds/thepoisonofgod) Log in to view. 




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